There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. That is his right. It is his legal right, no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right, and no one can or dare question his exercise of that legal right.
SAMUEL GOMPERSThe right to say the things which convey the new and yet unexpected thoughts, the right to say things, even though they do a wrong.
More Samuel Gompers Quotes
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Our mission has been the protection of the wage-worker, now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the long workday, which was killing him; to improve the safety and the sanitary conditions of the workshop.
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The freedom of speech and the freedom of the press have not been granted to the people in order that they may say things which please, and which are based upon accepted thought, but the right to say the things which displease.
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The working people know no country. They are citizens of the world.
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The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit.
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No human being is unimportant. My inspiration comes in opening opportunities that all alike may be free to live life to the fullest.
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There is not a right too long denied to which we do not aspire in order to achieve; there is not a wrong too long endured that we are not determined to abolish.
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No race of barbarians ever existed yet offered up children for money
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We will stand by our friends and administer a stinging rebuke to men or parties who are either indifferent, negligent, or hostile, and, wherever opportunity affords, to secure the election of intelligent, honest, earnest trade unionists, with clear, unblemished, paid-up union cards in their possession.
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Show me the country that has no strikes and I’ll show you the country in which there is no liberty.
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What does labor want? We want more schoolhouses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate our better natures.
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Workingmen are at the foundation of society.
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No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.
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It is impossible for capitalists and laborers to have common interests.
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Show me that product of human endeavor in the making of which the workingman has had no share, and I will show you something that society can well dispense with.
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You can’t weigh the soul of a man with a bar of pig-iron.
SAMUEL GOMPERS